Hoverbikes

Featured: Flight > Hoverbike by Chris Malloy - Australian helicopter pilot, Chris Mallow, is working on a motorcycle hovercraft design to travel at 100 mph and reach altitudes of up to 10,000ft. A 1/3-scale hoverbike drone prototype of the futuristic flying machine had its first formal public appearance at the Wings and Wheels airshow in Surrey, UK. (PESWiki; August 30, 2014)

Flight / Solar > Applications > Vehicles > Zephyr Solar Plane Completes 10x Longest Unmanned Flight Ever - The Zephyr solar plane has officially broken the endurance record for an unmanned aircraft by flying for a whopping two weeks above an Arizona army range. The photovoltaic-powered Zephyr, which touched down on Friday, handily beat the previous world record of 30 hours with a new record of 336 hours! (Inhabitat; July 26, 2010)

Hydrogen / Flight > Long-endurance, hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye UAV unveiled - Unveiled earlier this week in St. Louis, Boeing's Phantom Eye will set a new benchmark in long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology when it takes to the skies in 2011. With a wing-span of 150-feet, the hydrogen-powered aircraft will cruise at 150 knots, carry up to 450-pounds and stay aloft at 65,000 feet for up to four days. (GizMag; July 13, 2010)

Other Flying Small Craft

Flight / Human-Powered > First Continuous Flight of a Human-Powered Ornithopter! - A University of Toronto student has succeeded where Leonardo Da Vinci had failed, completing the first continuous flight of the human-powered aircraft known as an ornithopter. Todd Reichert , a PhD student at the U of T Institute for Aerospace Studies at the University of Toronto, succeeded in piloting the aircraft, which flies by flapping its wings like a bird. (Inhabitat; Sept. 23, 2010)

Featured: Flight >Carter Copter - Carter Aviation Technologies is a research and development company pioneering new aviation concepts, focusing on slow-rotor compound aircraft, VERTOL and using a small efficient wing for high speed flight, up to 500 mph, all with much less complexity than a tilt-rotor or other vectored thrust vehicle. (PESWiki; March 14, 2009)

Multi Mode Vehicle - motorbike AND aircraft in one - Here we are in 2009 - televisions are thin, phones are smart and robots are on the rise, but still there's that nagging sense of disappointment each time you look outside and realize that cars don't fly. Samson Motorworks hopes to rescue us from this predicament. (GizMag; June 3, 2009)

Flycycle: human-powered aircraft test pending - Canadian project objective is to build a practical human-powered aircraft. Their first prototype is nearing completion; testing is pending. Presently a do-it-yourself project, complete with instructions.

HoverCopter - Vertical Lifting System (US Patent Pending) uses vertical airfoils to control the reverse torque created by spinning the horizontal rotor blades. Uses the down draft to achieve reverse torque and rotational control. Site mentions Perendev Magnetic Motor as ideal for the design.

AirScooter - Flying craft by inventor, Woody Norris, weighs 250-pounds, resembles a small helicopter, designed for medium distance air travel, but far easier to learn. Handlebar like a motorcycle. Can fly for 2 hours on one tank of fuel. (DiscoveryChannel.ca; April 20, 2005)

Solar > Vehicles > Solar Flight - SUNSEEKER, a manned solar powered aircraft, has an electric motor, planetary gearbox, a folding propeller and 40 lbs of Lithium batteries installed in the wings. It was flown from Ramona to Tehachapi and back, over the Mojave Desert, San Gabriel mountains, Ontario, and Lake Elsinore. Flight time on the return was less than 3.5 hours.

Solar > Solar Plane to Fly Continuously Around Mars - Scientists believe that Sky-Sailor will reach the inner orbit of Mars within a decade or two. In 2005 a prototype achieved a continuous flight time of five hours, with a 24-hour flight test planned for the summer of 2007. With a lithium-ion polymer battery the plane can fly all night and during cloudy or foggy conditions, all on solar power. (PhysOrg; Mar. 14, 2007)

Other Designs

Fuel Efficiency > Vehicles > Flight > NASA Unveils Passenger Plane Designs for 2025 - NASA recently asked the three of the largest airplane companies in the US to come up with a design that would fit a very specific criteria. This project hoped to create a full-functioning plane by the year 2025 that would not only use significantly less fuel, but be cleaner and quieter and be able to fly up to 85 percent of the speed of sound, cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles; and carry up to 100,000 pounds of payload. (Inhabitat; January 14, 2011)

Spark Design PALV - The PALV (Personal Air and Land Vehicle): a concept for a new form of transport, developed by Spark and BBB Management. The PALV can be driven like a car and flown like a gyrocopter. (GizMag; Oct. 14, 2004))

Fuel Efficiency > 50 MPG Plane Wins PAV Prize - The Pipistrel won NASA's Personal Air Vehicle X-Prize like contest, achieving 50 MPG. The plane is extremely light weight, so it becomes more fuel efficient as it flies and burns fuel, getting lighter. The plane's simple controls and ease of operation also helped it take home the prize. It costs about $70,000. (EcoGeek; Aug. 15, 2007)

Fuel Efficiency > Vehicles > 9 Steps to Cheaper Greener Flight - The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is the first commercial jet produced with efficiency specifically in mind, but the 787 still leaves a lot of room for improvement. Several designs are at various stages of production that could make air travel as efficient, or even more efficient, than automobiles. (EcoGeek; Jul. 26, 2007)

Fuel Efficiency > Vehicles > Ohio Airships - The Dynalifter® “Roadless Trucking�? system has transport costs and speeds comparable to trucking without the need of building a sophisticated highway network. It has the ability to fly on low amounts of power at low speeds, much like airships, but without the operational drawbacks of a traditional airship.

Fuel Efficiency > Vehicles > Silent aircraft creeps closer to reality - Researchers from Cambridge University and MIT unveiled their concept for a flying wing aircraft that makes a huge reduction in noise. This highly-efficient design offers improvements of around 25% in fuel consumption and is intended for entry into service in 2030. (The Cambridge-MIT Institute; November 06, 2006)

35% More Efficient Flight - Bauhaus Luftfahrt is promising emissions cuts of 35% by 2035, to meet the European Union’s Clean Skies initiative. They propose adoption of geared turbofans in conventional engines for 15%, then counter fans for 5%, and waste recuperation for another 15% efficiency. Bauhaus is also working on a box-winged aircraft for further reductions. (EcoGeek; Feb. 14, 2008)

Spaceports

Flight / Anti-Gravity / UFOs > Virgin Galactic opens new spaceport - Space travel just got another step closer for the masses (at least the well-heeled ones) with the dedication of Virgin Galactic's new "Gateway to Space" facility at Spaceport America, the world's first purpose-built spaceliner terminal situated in the southern New Mexico desert. (GizMag; October 18, 2011)

Successful test of superconducting plasma rocket engine - Ad Astra Rocket Company has successfully demonstrated operation of its VX-200 plasma engine first stage at full power and under superconducting conditions. VASIMRA engines could enable space operations far more efficiently than today's chemical rockets, and ultimately they could also greatly speed up robotic and human transit times for missions to Mars and beyond. (Space Fellowship; July 6, 2009)

Space Hotel 2012 - Start planning that vacation to outer space. The first space hotel is expected to open as soon as 2012, with three-day stay costing ~$4 million. The hotel, "Galactic Suites," will allow adventurous travelers to enjoy a spectacular starry view from their hotel rooms, see the Sun rise 15 times a day and take part in scientific experiments while they're not using Velcro suits to crawl around their pod-room walls. (Facebook)

What Is The Carbon Footprint of The Space Program? - While burning liquid hydrogen, which produces water vapour, is clean; the process of creating the liquid hydrogen for one flight consumes about as much electricity as could power 128 average American homes for a year, not to mention the transportation costs for shipping that fuel to the launch site. (TreeHugger; July 20, 2009)

Clean Fuels

Boeing tests battery-powered plane - "For the first time in the history of aviation, Boeing has flown a manned airplane that was powered by a hydrogen battery," Boeing chief technology officer John Tracy told a news conference at the firm's research centre in the central Spanish town of Ocana. (The Age; April 4, 2008)

1.58 minutes Story of Boeing's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Aircraft
"We are proud of our pioneering work during the past five years on the Fuel Cell Demonstrator Airplane project. It is a tangible example of how we are exploring future leaps in environmental performance, as well as a credit to the talents and innovative spirit of our team."
(April 4, 2008 YouTube)

SpaceShipTwo heading for 2008 test flight - Designed as an environmentally benign space launch system, SpaceShipTwo is the world’s largest, all carbon composite aircraft and will be capable of carrying eight astronauts or other payloads into sub-orbital space flight. (GizMag; August 4, 2008)

DLR and Airbus Testing Hydrogen PEM Fuel Cell Auxiliary Power System in A320 - The hydrogen fuel cell system worked consistently below 3G, with enough in store for a standby system. Since February 2008 the same fuel cell system has been used to power a hydraulic circuit pump, with the necessary power to steer the Airbus A320 ATRA (Advanced Technology Research Aircraft) . (GreenCar Congress; May 26, 2008)